


dancing in the moonlight

by Avengerz



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Case Fic, Dom/sub Undertones, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Juno in a Dress, M/M, Panic Attacks, Peter in a scheme, When does this take place in canon?? no idea, but no spoilers past season one, gays in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 00:45:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avengerz/pseuds/Avengerz
Summary: Juno Steel should really know better than to go along with one of Peter Nureyev's heists - there's always a twist that leaves Juno thrown off-balance and twitching for his blaster. But Nureyev has a way of smiling that makes Juno forget to refuse.And that's how he ends up in situations like this: a party for Hyperion City's social elite, a 30 million cred painting,  a little black dress, risk of death, and one hell of a miscommunication.





	dancing in the moonlight

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to the Juno Steel Dating Sim discord, esp marbledopalescence for suggesting this - y'all are forcing me to work on my characterization and it's been so fun. This is my first fic in the TPP fandom, though I've loved it for a while.
> 
> If I forgot any tags, please let me know!!
> 
> @ my marvel readers, sorry I keep trying to write for different fandoms instead of finishing my WIPs ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Check out the penumbra podcast, though!! It's very well done, it's got adventure, mystery, heists and, best of all, canon gays in space!
> 
> Anyways, on to the fic!

It’s a clear night in Hyperion City. Surprisingly clear, for a city under a radiation dome in Mars’ sand-blown atmosphere. Clear enough to see the bright pinpoint of Deimos moving steadily against the void of space as her larger sister-moon Phobos sets and rises for the second time that night. The stars don’t sparkle like they do on Earth, but there’s an undeniable beauty of their steady light, shining down on the troubled lives of the inhabitants of Hyperion City.

If Juno Steel had heard that sentiment, he would have laughed. The stars are uncaring, and he knows it better than most. And beauty? There’s precious little in this city he could honestly call beautiful.

But he doesn’t laugh now, because he’s not thinking about the stars, because he’s far too busy following the most beautiful man on Mars into reckless danger. 

Again.

This time he’s wound up on the largest terrace of the third largest floating mansion in Hyperion City, with Peter Nureyev at his side and surrounded by the genteel rich of Mars, all for a painting worth 30 million cred.

“It’s not a painting, darling,” Peter told him six hours ago. “It’s a replication of a photograph of an ancient earthen cave painting.” 

“Hey, save your fancy talk for the rich assholes at the party. I know a bad painting when I see one.”

Peter had sighed in that way where he was both amused and fond and exasperated in just an exhale. Juno hated that sigh. Mainly because he loved it even more than he hated it.

“And why do we need to steal -”

“It’s really more of a repossession-”

“ _ Steal _ this bad painting?”

“Because, Juno,” Peter shot him a glance over the tops of his glasses (and Juno had the sinking feeling that he was going to agree to this heist no matter what Peter’s reasoning was), “it truly belongs to the aboriginal people of North America - you remember your Earth history classes-”

“No.”

“-and they want it returned. It has a lot of historical and cultural power, and we’re going to be stealing it back from the rich.”

“Hmm.” That sounds so morally upright and plain  _ good _ that Juno doubted it immediately. “And how much are they paying you?”

“Well, they’re reimbursing us for our time and effort, of course.” Peter flipped open the blueprint of the Talully Manor and smiled at Juno in that way where he pretended to feel guilty but was too obviously delighted at being caught in his scheme.

Juno hates that smile, but loves it more. Or maybe just loves-

Anyway.

An hour of planning, two wardrobe fittings, four hours of staking out the mansion and one hour where Peter insisted that Juno relax and Juno did everything but relax brought them here, in a line to enter the Talully family’s annual Colonization Day party. 

The press are swarming and Juno tries not to fidget under the cold gaze of Cameramen. He feels exposed and that’s not a great feeling to have when you’re heist-ing.

It helps that his outfit isn’t as flashy as many of the other attendees, and the Cameramen don’t pay him or his understated black dress much attention. That’s not to say the dress isn’t nice. 

Honestly, the dress is  _ too _ nice. Juno had protested at the evident quality of the craftsmanship, and then even louder when he saw the bill, but Peter had been insistent. Juno loved the dress too much to truly protest. 

The black silk drapes across his body to the floor, save for the long slit up the side of one leg. It’s cinched tighter around the waist, tied up on each side of Juno’s chest with dark purple ribbon that reveals flashes of his skin and scars beneath. Above the corset the fabric is sheer, only thin lace held up by a thick black ribbon around the base of Juno’s throat. He’s wearing earrings, too, and thick black bracelets with thin, stitched designs of vines and other green, growing things that Juno’s never seen in real life.

He looks beautiful - feels beautiful, which is even harder to accomplish, but Juno knows that his outfit, while well-made and beautiful, doesn’t quite grab the limelight like diamond studded robes or holographic suits. Still, Juno feels sweat gather in the hand he has clasped on Peter’s elbow as cameras whirr and flash around them.

“Is this whole party thing really necessary?” he asks for the ninth time. Like eight times before, Peter smiles at him, and Juno feels his cheeks heat and his thoughts slow under that fox-grin.

“Of course it is, Juno,” Peter says, and Juno gets so lost in the way that Peter says his name (long and languishing over each letter, as if the word is a pleasure to say) that he ends up nodding and agreeing to whatever Peter suggests.

Then he frowns. “Wait, Juno? Aren’t I supposed to have an alias or whatever?”

Peter’s smile softens, turns amused. “I don’t think even I can disguise Juno Steel from all the crime lords of Hyperion City.”

“Fair. Okay, what’re you- who are you tonight?” Juno frowns. “And wait, did you say  _ all the-” _

“I’m Darius Hawthorn, darling, remember? I’m the owner of a rapidly growing private security business, and I plucked you from obscurity four months ago and trained you to lead my company.”

“I wouldn’t say I was obscure-”

“And tonight I’m very interested in meeting with Skip Talully now that his father is dead to see if he’s interested in updating the family mansion’s security.”

“Couldn’t you come up with an alibi that doesn’t sound so much like ‘Hi, I’m a robber?’”

“Not everyone is as suspicious as you, Juno.” Somehow, Pete- Darius makes it sound like a compliment.

Juno hates him  _ so much _ . (He doesn’t.)

“Okay, wait, what did you say about all the heads of-”

“Oh look, darling, we can go in now!”

“Nureyev…”

Darius smiles and leads him out to the party.

The previous owner of the mansion, Pax Talully, died three months ago, leaving his fortune to his son. Skip Talully may be young, but the money is old. His Talully family made its start selling oxygen in the early colonies, and have been clinging to their fortune with schemes from corrupt insurance companies to faulty filtering systems ever since. His father wasn’t exactly a hero to the people, but now that Skip’s in charge of the fortune, maybe he’ll turn his intentions towards undoing the wrong his family’s companies have done over the years.

Judging by the size of the party he’s throwing, Juno thinks as they pass through the gates onto the terrace, it’s not likely.

He sees the glitz of several dozen of the planet’s most expensive outfits and the filters to protect the guests from the dusty stim-wind and he sees Skip Talully surrounded by a crowd- and then he sees what Peter didn’t tell him about.

“I didn’t know the guest list would be a fucking Who’s Who for Hyperion City’s organized crime!”

“It’s going to be fine, Ju-”

“Fine?! Do you know how many people want me dead? Enough to kill me eight times over and then there’s still another dozen itching to revive me just to kill me again! And most of them are in this room!!”

“While that’s certainly… evocative, Juno, I promise it will be fine. As long as you behave.”

“Behave?!”

“Oh, there he is! I’m going to speak with him. Come along, Juno.”

Nureyev strides off, and Juno can only stare for a long moment. Peter has never talked to him like that, so dismissively. Juno feels something twist in his gut, and he reminds himself that Peter is just acting. It’s not Peter who’s talking to him like that, it’s Darius.

Then, hyper-aware of a Triad goon approaching from across the room, Juno jogs after Darius.

Skip Talully looks… pretty much how Juno expected him to look. His red hair is slicked up and his suit is what Juno can only guess is the latest from Olympus Mons, though it looks more like an old tarp cut into a toga with shorts. He’s wearing shades even though the sun has finally set and this close to the top of the dome it’s as dark as the void, lit only by the spotlights of his mansion and the pinpricks of stars. He’s laughing with a troop of similarly dressed sycophants, and he’s double-fisting some very expensive Venusian whiskey.

Juno hates him on sight.

It’s hard to stay silently as Darius greets Skip with a broad grin and a monologue designed to set the target at ease - flattering but not so much as to be suspicious, companionable without assumption.

Juno wonders if a conman is always more evident from the outside of the con, or if he knows Nureyev well enough to read his tells. The thought pleases him more than he’d admit. Then he wonders if he actually is on the outside of this con, and the warmth blinks out like a blown candle.

“-and this is my partner, Juno Steel.”

Juno blinks, looks up into the eyes of Skip Talully. Or at least, his line of sight. It’s hard to tell with the sunglasses on.

“Partner?” Talully has an old American accent, the drawl tightened by generations in the upper class to a purr. “Or  _ partner? _ ” He waggles his pale eyebrows and strokes the line of Juno’s body with his gaze as if he wishes it was a hand.

“Both,” Darius says, and his posture is loose but his hand is clamped tight around the back of Juno’s neck. Juno likes it, he thinks, or maybe he doesn’t. He definitely doesn’t like the way Skip is eyeing him. “Although, partner isn’t perhaps the word I’d use.”

Darius shakes him slightly by the hand on his neck, and Juno decides he doesn’t like it. The grip suddenly feels much more like a collar than a comfort. 

Skip laughs and tips his sunglasses down. “Oh, I think I understand.” He winks, and Juno feels strangely like he’s being kept from a joke, even though he heard everything they said.

“Yes,” Skip says as he pushes his sunglasses back up his nose, “you’re more than welcome here, Mr. Hawthorn. Perhaps we can talk about an update for the security system, but not tonight. Meet with my secretary, she’ll help you set up an appointment.”

“Of course, Skip. I look forward to speaking with you then.”

“You too, Darius. And, you know, I wouldn’t mind if you brought your pet along next time, too.”

Juno suddenly feels very cold.

“I’m not sure about that.” The grip tightens around his neck, as if to keep him from bolting. If Juno could have spoken, he would’ve told Darius not to bother. He couldn’t move if he wanted to. Darius keeps speaking without looking over at Juno, so maybe it doesn’t matter what he would or wouldn’t have said. 

“After all, my Juno was a bit naughty before I met him. He’s made some enemies, but I am so very possessive. It’s not safe to take him out very much. I just couldn’t miss the opportunity to dress him up.”

They both look over at Juno, and Juno feels the tight strip of lace around his throat, the corset, the heavy bracelets, and realizes yet again that he’s a dumbass.

This is what he gets for going along with Nureyev’s schemes, this, this- whatever it is. This  _ understanding _ that Nure- Darius has cultivated with Skip with just a few sentences and a casual display of power. 

Juno feels more exposed than he did under the view of the cameramen.

He hates it. (And he really does hate it.)

Skip is speaking, dismissing Darius’s concerns and promising him that everything will be sorted out to keep his “pet” safe.

Darius replies, and Juno doesn’t grasp more than the sound of his voice and the press of his hand as they move away from Skip. His lungs are burning, and he realizes it’s because he hasn’t taken a breath. 

So he takes one, and then another, and he’s so focused on breathing - it’s important, after all, vital for life and all - that he can’t process the concerned pitch of Peter’s voice or the flashes of party he glimpses as he is lead across the room. It’s a mess of blurred lights and crowds of people until suddenly Juno is crouched in the corner of a bathroom while Pet- Dariu- Nureyev blocks the door.

“Juno,” he’s saying, over and over, and “I’m sorry,” and “you’re safe.”

“Shut up,” Juno rasps, and then, louder, when Nureyev keeps talking, “Shut up!”

Nureyev shuts up.

Juno breathes in, feels it rattle through his chest and down his spine, then exhales. Then he starts to feel embarrassed.

Had he just had a panic attack? An honest to got panic attack over- what? Some rich asshole and Nureyev being a little harsh to him?

“Can we not talk about this,” Juno mumbles from behind his hands. Even with his eyes covered, he can imagine the look that Nureyev shoots him.

“Juno, of course we’re going to talk about this. You just had a panic attack-”

“I don’t know if I’d say that-”

“And I’m not sure why! I didn’t know how to help you, because I didn’t know what the trigger was.”

It’s only because Nureyev has survived not one but four of Juno’s panic attacks already and still stuck by him that Juno’s able to summon the courage to meet Nureyev’s desperate eyes.

“I figured it was the- well, the way I spoke about you to that jumped-up daddy’s boy. You have to believe me Juno, I had no idea it would affect you.” Nureyev looks genuinely stricken, his back still against the bathroom door but his hands twitching like he wants to take Juno in his arms. “I should have asked, I know submission and power-play can be difficult-

“No! No, it wasn’t, you know. That.” Juno’s cheeks could melt steel beams. “No, that stuff is. Fine. More than fine. I mean. It’s good. Who isn’t down for a little submission after a long week? I mean. Oh god. I’m going to stop talking.”

Nureyev’s expression has eased from horror to amusement, and there’s a flash of interest in the way he cocks his brow. Luckily, he lets Juno off the hook.

“Then what upset you, Juno? I refuse to knowingly put you in a situation like that again.”

“Well, hey, you know me, I’ve got a whole shuttle’s worth of issues and trauma to spare. What’s one more freak-out?”

“Juno…” Nureyev’s voice is too tender to bear. Juno looks away.

“It just- reminded me of my mom, a bit. I mean, we kept up appearances for a while, right? Dear old Ma couldn’t let the neighbors know she was bat-shit. It felt like the way she introduced me to people.”

Nureyev’s eyes, when Juno glanced back, were wide in alarm. “She-”

“No, no, not like that. I just meant- I felt invisible. Or, not invisible, worse than that. Like I was something less than human, and like I didn’t have a voice or a say or- Well. It wasn’t the greatest feeling is all.”

“Oh Juno, I’m so sorry.” Nureyev sweeps across the floor then but hesitates in front of Juno. “It was just a bit of acting to get on Skip’s good side. I would have cleared it with you beforehand, but we both know you do your best acting when you’re not actually trying to act.”

That surprises a laugh out of Juno, and Nureyev smiles back.

“I’m sorry, Juno. You’re not invisible, and your opinion is far more important to me than anyone else at this dreadful party. I see you, Juno Steel.”

Juno can’t look away as Peter steps closer to grasp his hands. 

“I see you, and I love you.”

And how is Juno  _ not  _ supposed to kiss him?

Words are tough, no matter how many he can say per minute. He knows how to do this, though, to kiss Peter and thread fingers through his hair and hum in a way that means ‘thank you and I forgive you and I love you too, even if I can’t say it.’

It’s a very good kiss.

It’s broken less than two seconds later by someone opening the door to the bathroom. “Finally,” they exclaim. “I swear this door has been blocked all- oh!”

Juno and Nureyev startle apart to see one of Skip’s sycophants staring at them, surprise turning to amusement on their face.

“Oh, didn’t mean to interrupt.” Their eyes scan over Nureyev’s mussed hair and the tight grip Juno still has on the lapel of his jacket.

Juno feels ice in his veins, but before he can freeze, Nureyev is wrapping an arm around his shoulders and sweeping him out of the bathroom. The sycophant laughs but doesn’t follow them.

“I’m sorry, darling, but we shouldn’t leave yet.” Nureyev sounds wretched, and Juno drags his eyes away from the exit with a sigh. He understands - you can’t make first contact with a target then suspiciously vanish, or so Nureyev has told him.

He understands, too, that if he put his foot down, Nureyev would whisk him away from the stupid party and stupid Skip in a heartbeat.

Juno feels stronger, calmer, with Nureyev’s arm wrapped protectively around him, so he sighs and nods. “Alright, but I don’t want to interact with any other human beings.”

Nureyev chuckles and leads him towards the dance floor. “That, darling, I can provide.”

It’s not a song that Juno recognizes - they never are, at parties like this - but the melody’s slow and simple and Juno fits next to Nureyev so well they’re not so much dancing as co-existing. Juno sees various criminal and law enforcement bruisers glaring at him from across the dance floor, but none make a move towards him and Nureyev as they spin around them.

Juno feels a flash of pride at Nureyev’s cleverness, ensuring Juno’s safety in what might as well be a “Juno Hating Anonymous” meeting. He feels foolish, then, for how he panicked, and now it’s hard to remember why he had hated that little exchange so much. After all, he rather liked the dress Nureyev had picked out for him, and Juno wasn’t about to object to a little man-handling. Definitely not.

It was the words that were the problem, the voice. Nureyev was too good at switching masks, and Darius wasn’t affectionate with Juno at all. Not that Juno needed or even liked Nureyev’s affection! It was just! Nice!

But now, with Nureyev’s arms wrapped around him and Juno’s ear pressed to the slow thump of Peter’s ribcage, it’s hard not to feel lo- liked.

“I love you, Juno, I do.” Juno swears he’s going to get Nureyev checked for telepathy. Later, though, because now he’s too busy blushing and burying his face in Peter’s great-smelling chest. It’s not the first time Nureyev has said it, but it still makes Juno’s stomach fizz like the concrete in summer, shot through with elation and fear.    
  


“Yeah,” Juno says. “Uh, same.”

Someday, Juno knows in a deep, calm part of him that didn’t exist before he met Nureyev, he’s going to say the words back. Just not tonight.

Tonight, Peter is going to chuckle softly, and Juno is going to look up to catch the way his nose crinkles and his eyes flutter, and behind the soft halo that the spotlights shine on Peter’s hair, he’s going to see the steady glow of Deimos and Phobos, suspended next to each other against a star-dropped sky and shining down on the unexpected joys of the inhabitants of Hyperion City.

Juno will think, furtively, about beauty, and not immediately banish the thought. Peter will say, “I promise I won’t do anything like that again,” and Juno will blush and stammer through an explanation that maybe some parts of it were okay, just not in public, and Peter will get that curious gleam in his eye and that fox glint to his teeth. 

They’ll leave the party and plan their theft and maybe plan to try some other things, and then there’ll be other adventures and other moons on other planets and there’ll be a moment when Juno admits, in the calm between laser blasts and then again in the calm of a shared bed, that he loves Peter Nureyev.

Now, though, Juno rests his head against Peter’s chest under the soft strains of music and the light of two moons, and knows that he is cherished.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback - especially on characterization - is greatly appreciated!! also if you liked it please tell me i need that sweet sweet author validation!!


End file.
